“You have not answered,” I said. “Why are we the guardians of life? We Others are the same kind of parasites as you vampires. Why will people die after the Others?”
Lilith bared her teeth. Her fangs were not even withdrawn.
“You are being sly, and so am I. But you have been given an answer; no one promised to tell you all the details . . . Light One.”
“All right,” I said. “All right. We accept your answer. But we need to know what the Sixth Watch is.”
Lilith shrugged.
“How can we pay for the answer?” I asked. I felt a bleak pain gradually constricting my chest. It was probably the way people feel just a moment before a heart attack. “Would the blood of my daughter . . .”
“No, Light One!” Lilith exclaimed, shaking her head. “The time for that price has passed. Her blood might burn me, I was prepared to take that risk—but not now! You don’t have the price for another answer!”
I suddenly saw Kesha’s eyes turn big and round, filling up with a mixture of amazement, hope, and fear—fear in the eyes of a boy who had just voluntarily offered his neck to a vampiress thousands of years old.
“Perhaps I have the price for any of your answers,” a voice said behind me.
I turned around.
The Tiger was standing there, pouring himself a cup of coffee from a steaming pot. He was the same as before—a tall young man, dressed in a formal business suit. The Tiger lifted the cup to his face and took a sip. Then he slowly turned toward us.
“As you already remarked, I don’t have a will of my own,” said the Tiger. “But I do have blood. The blood of the Twilight, pardon the bad pun. You wish to round out your collection in a worthy manner before the end of time, don’t you, you decrepit brute?”
The vampire’s white dress turned pink, as if it was suddenly impregnated with blood. She shied away toward the wall, crashing into it, and white plaster dust sprinkled down onto her shoulders from the dull blow of the impact. Her legs buckled and she half squatted down, holding her hands out in front of her. The vampiress’s fingers had turned into black claws.
“Well, what is your answer?” the Tiger asked.
“N-n-no!” the vampiress moaned. “No!”
She bounded away from the wall and darted toward the window, intending to either open it or jump through it, smashing the glass.
But the Tiger was already at the window, still holding the cup of coffee in his hand. Without making a single movement, the Tiger was there. He simply appeared at the spot to which the vampiress had jumped—and she was halted by his open hand.
“You didn’t understand,” he said. “You have no choice. I’ll pay the price and you’ll answer the question.”
“I’ll answer!” Lilith shouted. “I’ll answer, I don’t need any payment!”
“Rules are rules,” said the Tiger.
He took a gulp from the cup and set it down on the window sill. Then he leaned his head over onto his right shoulder, presenting his neck.
“Bite me.”
Lilith started trembling. Then she nodded, resigning herself.
“Yes . . . yes.”
The vampiress’s mouth touched the Tiger’s neck for a moment—and instantly she recoiled. Her lips had turned crimson. Two tiny little bite marks had appeared on the Tiger’s neck.
“You took the price and you will give the answer,” said the Tiger. “What is the Sixth Watch?”
“The Six concluded a treaty with the Two-in-One,” the vampiress whispered. “The Six can terminate the treaty.”
“Who are they?” asked the Tiger.
“She who was born of the Light. He who was born of the Darkness. He who took another’s Power. He who has no Power of his own. He who sees. He who senses.”
“There must be three conditions,” the Tiger said, “I know the rules.”
Lilith nodded, gazing at him with hatred. Little clouds of steam were escaping from her mouth.
“Love, Hate, Nobility, Treachery, Strength, Weakness. This is the first condition.”
The Tiger nodded.
Lilith raised her hands, looking at her fingers in amazement. Then she went on.
“The envoy of each of the Great Parties must be present. The leader of each Party must come or appoint an envoy. That is the second condition.”
“What are the Great Parties?” I asked. “Light? Darkness?”
Lilith bared her teeth.
“I am obliged to name them, but not to explain them. Am I right, Tiger?”
The Tiger nodded, looking at her pensively.
“And the third condition,” said Lilith, smiling sincerely now—I would almost say soulfully, but it was a very long time since she had had a soul. “The Six must be bound by the first and principal Power.”
“The Twilight?” I couldn’t stop myself from asking.
To my surprise, Lilith answered.
“No, Light One. The very first and principal Power. Blood.”
“Perhaps you wish to say something else?” the Tiger asked.
“I hope you croak!” Lilith spat the words in his face. “I hope you all croak! And you, slave of the Twilight, too!”
“Well now, we’ll soon find out. But you won’t.”
Lilith laughed.
“No, we’ll see. We’ll see. I’ve remained faithful to the Two-in-One, I welcome him . . .”
“Where you will go, there is nothing,” said the Tiger, raising his hand.
Lilith started glowing with a blinding white light. Something was burning her from the inside. The white dress flooded with blood, then turned black—and the vampiress dwindled into a little mound of ash.
Kesha was dumbfounded. I took hold of his head and made him turn away.
“I’m sorry, I’ve made a mess,” said the Tiger. “Do you have a dustpan and brush?”
I looked at the remains of the vampiress for a while.
“No. Only a vacuum cleaner.”
“That will do,” said the Tiger. Without asking where to go, he walked out of the kitchen and came back with the vacuum cleaner. He examined the hose thoughtfully and lowered it to the floor. The vacuum cleaner started humming quietly. The Tiger held the brush to the dust, and the fine ash started flowing into the disposal bag in thin little rivulets.
He’d forgotten to plug the vacuum cleaner into the socket, but that didn’t prevent it from working.
“Thanks for your help, I’ll clean it up myself,” I said. “I’d feel I was a poor host if I let you do my cleaning.”
The Tiger gave a faint smile as he switched the vacuum cleaner off. Or did I imagine it? A smiling Tiger is a quite fantastic sight.
“Then one more thing and I’ll be going,” said the Tiger. “If you ask me if I understood what Lilith said, then no. I’m not the Twilight, I’m only a small part of it. You’ll have to find the answer yourself.”
“And what if I don’t find it?” I asked.
The Tiger looked at me in surprise.
“Didn’t you hear? We’ll all die.”
“How terrifying life is,” Kesha said, turning and looking at the heap of ash. And he yawned.
I looked at him.
“You go off to bed, Kesha. I won’t take you home now, you can spend the night in Nadya’s room. Take some clean sheets, they’re in the chest of drawers . . .”
“In the bottom drawer,” said Kesha, getting up. “I know.”
“How?” I asked sharply. “How do you know that?”
Kesha gave me a surprised look.
“I am a Prophet after all . . . By the way, you do have a brush and a dustpan—in the cupboard in the hallway.”
I heard soft gurgling sounds close by. I turned and looked at the Tiger.
He was chuckling quietly, pressing his hands over his mouth.
And then he dissolved into the air.
PART TWO
MANDATORY ALLIANCES
CHAPTER 1
THE ARCHIVE WAS AS COLD AND DARK AS EVER. BUT TODAY something
had changed: There was music playing.
I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear something classical, maybe Vivaldi or Bach. Or some foot-tapping Irish music, a jig or a reel.
But Helen Killoran was listening to a popular Russian bard.
Our verse is clear, shadows are we, twixt wakefulness and sleep
Living from hope to hope, from bivouac to cross.
Like molten magma, breathing sky, erupting from the deep,
It courses through our veins—the Haemoglobin Waltz.
I set off quietly, walking between the shadowy sets of shelves, with their slumbering lines of books, scrolls, printouts, punch cards, floppy disks, clay tablets, and laser disks.
How old we are, and which of us is which, we cannot understand.
Through little holes in dreams, this strange chord have we glimpsed, clear as an open hand,
So listen to it heedfully—perhaps it swirled above Japan
When the final kamikaze revved his engine high above the bones of his scalped land . . .
I walked up to the desk; a rather ancient radio/CD player was standing on it, with a memory stick protruding from its USB port. I pressed the stop button.
“Helen!”
“Yes, Anton?”
I shuddered and turned around. Killoran was standing behind me, clutching a fat tome in a leather binding.
“You frightened me,” I said.
“I got a fright too,” she replied. “I caught a glimpse of a flickering shadow. And I don’t have a very full schedule here . . .”
She suddenly became embarrassed and put the book down on the table. Had she been intending to wallop me with that massive volume, then?
“That’s a good song,” I said. “I didn’t know you liked the Russian bards.”
“Not all of them,” she said, wincing slightly. “But this is good . . . How’s your case going? Have you caught the vampiress?”
“Our case is all very convoluted,” I said. “Will you give me some tea? I feel like it today.”
She smiled and switched on the kettle. I sat down at the desk, poured myself a cup when it was ready, and gave Helen a brief account of everything that she probably hadn’t heard about down here in her basement. The only thing I left out was the Tiger’s visit—it didn’t matter if that meant Helen got the idea I was the one who laid Lilith to rest.
“Serious,” she said, and thought for a moment. “Very serious. Is there something you want to find out?”
“Yes. I’ve sent a request to the Day Watch, and to our people too. But maybe you can come up with something here . . .”
“The Two-in-One?”
“And something else: the Sixth Watch. And the Great Parties.”
“Is there anything on the computer?” Helen asked.
“No. Apart from the vampire legend of the Two-in-One from Orosc’s book.”
Helen nodded.
“There’s something else too. I think you ought to know this . . .” I took out my smartphone and displayed the note I’d received from our doctor, Ivan, on the screen. “Another eight people bitten. In a single sequence. She bit them purely symbolically; it’s no more than a signal. And the result is not what I was expecting.”
Helen leaned down over the screen.
“The sequence of the bites?”
“This is it,” I said with a nod.
“Roman, Oleg, Daniyar, Elena, Timofei, Silvano . . . Is that really a name?”
“It is. And what’s more, the boy isn’t even Italian, he’s Russian. You can’t imagine how strange some parents can be.”
“Kurzhan, Yoachim. Really? Written with a ‘Y’?”
“Absolutely right. I think the boy’s Australian. Our kids probably call him Akim, but in the official documents his name’s written as ‘Yoachim.’”
“. . . rodetsky,” said Helen. “So she’s finished your surname. Good for her.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, nodding. “That’s clear enough and it’s what we expected.”
“Now the patronymics,” Helen said. “What did we have there? ‘It’s your’?”
“Yes,” I said. “No apostrophe, but she obviously couldn’t find one of those.”
“Denisovich, Evgenievich, Chinigizovna, Ivanovna, Stepanovich, Ibragimovich . . .” Helen glanced at me. “Ibragimovich—is that Silvano?”
“Yes,” I said with a nod. “Silvano Ibragimovich. So? It has a fine, solemn ring to it.”
“Olegovich . . . Nikolaevna . . .”
“That’s right,” I said. “‘Decision.’”
“‘It’s your decision,’” Helen said with a nod. “More cheerful than ‘it’s your funeral.’”
“Yes. Although being asked for a decision in such an exotic way . . . that’s a bit stressful too.”
“Never mind, it won’t be the first decision you’ve had to make,” Helen reassured me. “And the conclusion. We had ‘Be ready,’ and now it’s Hadrianov, Evgenieva, Abramova, Wolanski, Andriushin, Inozemtsev . . .”
Helen winced.
“Go ahead, ask,” I said.
“Silvano Ibragimovich Inozemtsev?” Helen asked with a shudder. “Is that normal for Russia these days?”
“I don’t have enough imagination to speculate on what might be considered abnormal for Russia these days.”
“And what’s he like, in general . . . this Silvano?” Helen asked queasily. “Did you see him?”
“I did, purely by chance. An absolutely wonderful child. Despite his first name-patronymic-surname combination.”
Helen sighed and said, “Tokareva. Sukhanova.”
“He awaits,” I said with a nod.
“So in the end the meaning isn’t what you were expecting at all,” said Helen. “It isn’t a threat. She hasn’t come to get you. ‘Anton Gorodetsky, be ready, he awaits, it’s your decision.’”
“I wouldn’t actually swear that there isn’t any threat in that,” I remarked.
“But she saved your daughter, didn’t she, and you and your wife?”
“Perhaps she didn’t want to share the prey? And we don’t know who it is that awaits, do we?”
Helen shrugged.
“All right, Anton. I won’t try guessing in the dark. What can I do to help you? In the first place. The Sixth Watch?”
“Better start with the Great Parties,” I said. “They’ve already run through everything in the computer databases for me. The primordial powers—Light and Darkness—are sometimes called the Great Powers. But we’re obviously dealing with something different here.”
Helen sighed.
“Just a minute . . . So it’s ‘Parties’ then.”
She moved away again into the darkness, walked between the bookshelves, and stopped at one of them. A small pocket flashlight glinted feebly.
“Helen, why are you so fond of the dark?” I asked. “I understand a lot of the old tomes don’t like the light. But it’s awkward for you!”
“I have very good night vision,” Helen replied, rustling documents. “And a very good memory.”
“And catalogues,” I said.
“Naturally. Catalogues too. Great . . . By the way, I’m amazed at how carelessly the previous archivist maintained the collection. Russia has a very fine traditional school of archivists, probably due to the custom of keeping so many documents secret from the people.”
“Go on, mock away,” I growled. “Bleak Russia, with its archives full of secrets, guarded by polar bears holding balalaikas at ‘trail arms.’”
Helen snorted.
“Compared with the American, English, or French archives, yours aren’t really all that secret. But that doesn’t apply to the archives of the Watches, of course. They’re entirely secret.”
“Do you know something about the Day Watch archive then?”
“Of course. We have a certain amount of contact. We exchange duplicates and copies of documents, we consult with each other . . .”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” I said. “So much for the secrets of the Wa
tch cellars. Is Gesar in the loop?”
“In general terms,” Helen said evasively. “Hmm. The Great Parties. There is one reference. A treaty from the year 1215 ‘On Necessary and Unnecessary Measures.’ Not the actual treaty, of course, a copy. It mentions the Great Parties.”
“What is it about?”
Helen laughed.
“How should I know? You don’t really think I’ve read everything in here, do you? Come on, let’s go, I know where it’s stored. Come on!”
I got up and walked toward the weak glimmer of the flashlight. Helen gripped my hand in her own firm, cold palm and drew me after her into the darkness. The pale, milky-white ray of light shone on the floor in front of us for a few seconds and then went out.
“Why?” I asked.
“It’s better this way,” Helen replied vaguely. “And my advice to you is not to look through the Twilight. In fact it’s not even advice, but a very definite order.”
“And why’s that?” I asked, wincing involuntarily in anticipation of banging my forehead against some set of shelves as I stepped through the darkness. It was unbearable and I lifted my free hand to hold it out in front of me.
“It’s best if you don’t know why,” said Helen. “Yes, shield yourself with your hand if you like, but don’t switch on the light.”
We walked about ten yards across the old, crunching linoleum that covered the floor in the first hall. Then, judging from the movement of the air, we entered the next hall, where it was either floorboards or old, dried-out parquet that creaked under our feet. At one point Helen tugged me abruptly toward her.
“Sorry,” she said. “There was a bone jutting out from the shelf there, you would have crashed into it.”
“What sort of bone?”
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